


no phantom, to vanish from history

by ncfan



Series: Fictober 2019 [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fictober 2019, Gen, Headcanon Autistic Byleth, Headcanon Autistic Character, Missing Scene, Reflecting on parental deaths, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-10 18:36:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20856380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: It was a surprise to find his mother's ring case untouched after all this time, but that would make this easier. (Other things were not as easy.) [Written for Fictober 2019]





	no phantom, to vanish from history

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fictober 2019, prompt “Can you wait for me?”

Even in the moment, Dimitri was surprised to find what he had requested access to untouched, a surprise that would only deepen during the few minutes he had to himself during the mad dash to Derdriu. Faerghus had never been a particularly wealthy kingdom, and even the jewels owned by members of the royal family could not compare to the ones owned by the nobles of the wealthy Alliance or the ancient Empire. Still, Cornelia’s avarice had been made manifest not long after she seized power, and that this was untouched and intact was a surprise. He would have expected a few of the pieces to be missing, at least.

Then again, Cornelia had been a fixture at court for as long as Dimitri could remember, and he could never recall her wearing much jewelry, or taking interest in it at all. Her avarice had been focused upon other things, perhaps.

Or perhaps she had simply forgotten their existence. There were few people who ever seemed to remember Dimitri’s mother, or anything of hers.

Queen Sofiya’s personal jewelry had been put away after her death, never to be worn again. Dimitri had known the pieces only as things he had been shown as a child, alternately by his father and his stepmother. The contents of the cases sitting before him now had technically been part of the royal collection, to fall into the possession of each successive queen, but Queen Patricia had never worn them, cleaving instead to the pieces she had brought with her from the Empire, and those her husband made for her over the years. (Perhaps Dimitri should have taken that as a clue. If there was anything to take a clue _for_. Manipulations upon manipulations, and the more they came, the more difficult it was to tease out fact from fiction. He would leave it alone, for now. He did not wish to speculate.)

She was… The most apt way Dimitri could think of to describe his mother was as a phantom. His father rarely spoke of her, and out of respect for his friend’s second wife, Rodrigue had rarely spoken of her, either. Most of Queen Sofiya’s ladies-in-waiting and maids of honor had died with her. Her family, what little of it had been left after the plague, had been lost in Duscur. Family tree and memory both mutilated beyond recognition, there were only the barest scraps of her presence left to her son. A piece in one of the cases he had been handed was a glass phial with a small cutting of dark hair. One of the necklaces, Dimitri couldn’t remember which, was a locket with a miniature of her face within.

Absence was felt more keenly than presence ever had been; she was recognizable only through the empty space she had left behind. Family tree and memory mutilated beyond recognition, and left behind had been one boy, one man, with two hands full of wailing blood and a mind speared with other people’s regrets. She was recognizable only through her absence, and many times had Dimitri wished it otherwise. It… he wished for it, now. It would have made things much easier to bear. And in particular…

Dimitri eyed the ring case that had been handed over with the rest. His stomach churned. It would likely have made the decision he was trying to come to now somewhat easier.

Truly, Faerghus was not a wealthy kingdom, and it was by far less common for new pieces of jewelry to be made than it was for the pre-existing to change hands, even among the nobility. When Dimitri pried open the ring case, wincing at the protesting screech of rusty hinges, he counted thirteen, and who knew where each of them had originally came from, or how old they all were? They could have changed hands a dozen times before finding themselves in this case, either by gift or by purchase, and they could have been twenty, thirty, or well over a hundred years old. Rarely was any of your jewelry truly new, and you did not expect anything else.

The fact that so much jewelry in Faerghus was secondhand meant that no real fashions ever emerged. That was a blessing, or so it seemed to Dimitri as he began to examine the rings more closely. It was one less thing he would have to take into account when making a decision.

He sucked in another breath, this one so shallow that for a moment Dimitri felt faintly light-headed, almost dizzy. It was ridiculous, even presumptuous, to try to select a ring before the words that would require one had been spoken, or even elicited; it could bring down ill fortune to try to select a ring when the battles ahead could easily claim both of their lives. But however tenuous his belief was, Dimitri was _trying _now to believe it was possible that there was a future in which they did not both meet their ends on the battlefields of this war, and…

And if he had any right at all to hope, he could hope for this. Even a condemned man could hope for a reprieve before being led to the block or the gallows. Was he not allowed hope? Even if a small sliver fit only for a wretch, was he not allowed to hope?

Of course, when the idea had first taken root in his mind, immovable as a mountain, it had occurred to Dimitri not at all that he had no idea what she might _like_.

The only piece of jewelry he had ever seen her wear was that battered brass brooch, only removing it briefly a few months back to clean it of the green tarnish that had somehow built up during those five years of absence. Beyond that, nothing, and he had no idea which way her tastes ran.

Nothing too elaborate; Dimitri could guess at that much without having to be told. The issue was that avoiding the more elaborate rings eliminated eight or nine of them. (He wondered, briefly, if this had been his mother’s taste in jewelry, or if it had simply been that there were the rings she had inherited or been gifted. Another question that would likely never see an answer.) Very well. That just made it easier to choose—a thought asserted with the desperation of a man who knew he couldn’t ask Annette or _especially _Mercedes for advice without them immediately guessing at his purpose—but which one…

The bands were all silver. (Maybe _that _had been part of his mother’s preferences.) On the four (that other one had been too elaborate, after all) that had been singled out, the jewels that studded the band were small, and had clearly not been polished in some time. But on each one, the color was still clear. The problem was preference.

She was a quiet person. He knew that; he wouldn’t have changed it. But right now, Dimitri wished she was just a little more talkative. It would have made this a little easier.

“Dimitri?”

Dimitri straightened with a jolt, shutting the ring case swiftly and wincing at the loud snap of wood on wood. (If the case was cracked… Well. Gustave could likely fix it, but that would involve explaining why he had been going through his mother’s ring case in the first place, and he… No. He was _not _yet prepared to have that conversation.) When he turned to face her, she was looking at him with something he had learned to recognize as bemusement—head tilted slightly to the right, mouth pursed, eyes narrowed—but she said nothing further.

“What is it?” Dimitri asked her, struggling to keep his voice steady.

“We’ll be ready to set out for Derdriu very soon,” Melusine told him. “The last of the supplies will be packed in the next few minutes.”

“I understand.” He could barely keep his eye from straying back to the ring case. How long had she been standing there before announcing herself? “…Can you wait for me? There is something I must do; I may be delayed.” He’d have to give his apologies to Claude, later.

Melusine nodded. “We can’t very well leave _without _you. Even if we drive the horses to their breaking points, it will still take a few days to reach Derdriu. A few minutes’ delay matters little.” Then, she looked past him, to the table laden with open jewelry cases (and one left firmly shut), and her gaze sharpened. “What are you doing?”

He had at least sense enough not to draw attention to the ring case, but it didn’t even occur to Dimitri to lie. “This…” He gestured lamely at the cases. “This was my mother’s jewelry, when she still lived.”

At first, she seemed to make the same leap that likely everyone would be making for some time, possibly for the rest of their lives. The edge of confusion showed itself in a furrowed brow and loosened posture. The thoughts, Dimitri could guess at: _why would you want to…_

He had no idea what to think. He had no idea what to want. (As long as he did not have answers that hadn’t come from the mouth of a dying liar determined to hurt him, he would have no idea what to believe.) Ever since those words had passed Cornelia’s bloodied lips, punctuated by coughs and sputters and yet so damningly clear, he had found himself reexamining every last interaction he had ever had with his stepmother, every warm word or gesture she had ever bestowed upon him called into doubt. He had loved her as his mother, and that love had perhaps been cast into an abyss, never to be reflected in any meaningful way. (Was he to be denied even that much?) His father had loved her dearly, and that love had perhaps been repaid with murder.

Perhaps, perhaps. She was gone. They had never found a body in Duscur, and the fact that she had never resurfaced anywhere in the Empire, that certainly suggested that, however it had happened, Patricia von Arundel had met her fate long ago. Perhaps she was innocent, and happy in the next life. Perhaps she was guilty, and languished in the eternal flames, for however long it took for her to expiate a litany of sins. Dimitri had no answers, and unless he could pin down his uncle long enough to interrogate him, he might never have any answers at all.

It was so easy to fall into obsession. It was so easy to fall into obsession, and never realize that you were falling, up until the moment when your body struck the spikes waiting at the bottom of the pit. Dimitri had obligations greater than his own obsessions, or the festering cuts that could spark new obsessions. It had taken him five years to remember that, but he would not forget again. He owed his people more than that.

Then, realization dawned in Melusine’s face (brow smoothing itself out, eyes glimmering faintly with something unnamable), and she said softly, “She died when you were very young, didn’t she? Sylvain told me.”

And there was a pang of the old pain again, the pain more of absence than of loss, knowing a bit of you was missing and possessing no means by which to put yourself back together. “Yes, she did.”

“I’m sorry.”

That threw Dimitri more than it should have. He had heard plenty of people express such sentiments over the course of his life, for many more people than just his birth mother. Oh, all that was old was new again. (Maybe the good could be new as well as the bad.) “Please, there is no need,” he said falteringly. Melusine stared at him, and he had to look away. “I have no memory of her.”

Melusine made a soft humming noise in the back of her throat, before crossing the floor to come to stand beside him in front of the table. It was Dimitri’s turn to stare as her eyes darted across the open cases and the pieces of jewelry that glinted faintly in the light. Under any other circumstance, he wouldn’t have wanted her gone from his side. But that ring case was far too close to the hand that rested on the edge of the table (and looking at that hand, Dimitri began to wonder, very much against his will, if his mother’s rings might not be a bit too large to fit properly on her ring finger), and he had more than once before watched her pursue her curiosity to lengths greater than simply opening a box.

“So this…” She paused, raking her fingernails against the surface of the table. “…was hers?”

“Yes.” He almost laughed to himself as he thought about what this must look like to someone who had grown up as a mercenary. “I assure you, this is not as excessive as it looks.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s excessive.” She pursed her lips as her gaze fell on one of the necklaces, a chain strung with small silver beads and a gold oval pendant laced with silver vines.

“You…” Her name sat somewhere towards the back of his mouth. She’d pressed him more than once this past month just to call her by her name, as she had managed to convince roughly half of them to do. He remembered her request maybe half of the time, and even when it did, her name sat awkwardly on his tongue—which, considering why he’d asked for these cases in the first place, was faintly ridiculous. _Maybe I will manage to call her by name with ease by the time we wed, if she’ll have me at all._ Dimitri suddenly felt an ocean’s worth of sympathy for men who only ever called their wives by pet names. “…Melusine.” Marginally less awkward than last time. He seemed to be making progress. “I… Forgive me, but I don’t believe I have ever heard you speak of your mother.”

A lame opening, considering he had rarely heard her speak of her father, even when he was still alive. But that was something that had come to bother Dimitri after Jeralt died, that there was no word of Melusine’s mother. Another phantom like his own, perhaps, but was she still living, somewhere in Fódlan? If she was not a mercenary, it was entirely likely that she was living in a village somewhere far away, waiting for her husband and daughter to return—or just her daughter, for doubtless Jeralt’s death had circulated quickly through Fódlan, given just who he was. There were far too many mothers waiting in vain for their families to return to them.

Flatly, staring blankly at the far wall, “She’s dead.”

Another phantom, then.

“Forgive me. I did not mean to open old wounds.”

She frowned up at him. “There are none to open. She died in childbed; I have no memory of her.” Flat had become toneless though, not the even quiet of her normal speaking voice, but the dullness of actively denying… something. Dimitri had never been able to tell what. Some of the variations in her tones of voice were too subtle for him to be able to tease out any sort of understanding of what they meant. This was one of them.

He could think of nothing to say that was not inadequate. He set his hand on her shoulder, and was silent.

Melusine, meanwhile, was again staring at the necklace that had caught her gaze before. “Is this…” She reached out her hand, and slid her fingernail between a seam in the pendant. Oh, _there_ was the locket. It popped open easily, and Melusine took it up into her hands, peering intently at the miniature within. More hesitantly than he was accustomed to, she asked, “Is this her?”

It occurred to Dimitri, suddenly, that he couldn’t actually remember if the miniature _was _a portrait of his mother. A glance at it revealed a picture of a smiling woman with dark hair, but for all he knew, this could have been a portrait of his grandmother in her youth, or one of his aunts. He had always believed it to be her when he was younger, but no one had ever confirmed as much with him. He did not know for truth.

“Yes.” That was what he wished to believe. To try to accept otherwise would have been a small loss to pile up on top of the others, but somehow, the specter of its weight was felt more keenly than the loss of one image truly warranted. He was, in the end, a weak man. “This is her.”

Her eyes darted briefly to his face, before returning to the open locket she held in her hands. Melusine worried at her lower lip with her teeth, brow deeply furrowed, before looking back up at Dimitri and saying, very firmly, “You should take this with you.”

The words were so suddenly spoken, and not at all what Dimitri had expected. It was a moment before he could recover enough to ask her, “Why do you say that?”

Her eyes kept shooting back and forth between his face and the locket. “I don’t… believe in charms.” Her tone was stilted, mouth forming words like they belonged to a foreign tongue. “But this might hearten you, a little. I have seen many carry similar things into battle, and it seemed to give them comfort.”

The smile that broke over Dimitri’s mouth was as unexpected as her words had been, but warmed him just as much. “Thank you.” He scooped the pendant and chain out of her hand, as excruciatingly careful as he must be with any fragile thing he did not wish to break. “I will, I promise.”

They looked at each other, and at first the silence and that shared gaze was companionable. She was very dear. He did not get this kind of opportunity very often, to just look at her without any kind of distraction or interruption. But then, Melusine began to twitch, Dimitri remembered the time, the ring case, and the basic rules of propriety, and suddenly, that silence was not as companionable as it had been.

Face slightly pink and voice almost enviably even, Melusine told him “I need to make my final preparations,” and left without another word.

Alone, Dimitri cursed himself silently, before turning his attention back to the ring case. One of the less ornate bands was set with emeralds. He took it out of the case and stowed it away with the locket in a pouch on his belt. They matched her eyes. Eyes he hoped he would still be able to see after their battles were done. He did not wish to have another ghost dog his steps. Of all those who could become phantoms and vanish from history, she deserved it least of all.

**Author's Note:**

> My whole idea for this fic was me trying to explain to myself why Dimitri just straight-up doesn’t question it when you give him a ring that’s got to be way too small to fit any of his fingers, and whoops, it’s over 3k.


End file.
